Linguistics is devoted to the scientific study of language. The central goal of the discipline is to provide a theoretical account of the human cognitive capacity that underlies language production and comprehension. As one of the world's leading programs, the Linguistics department at USC is at the forefront of scientific progress in the study of language. The Linguistics department conducts research in diverse fields—first and second language acquisition, language processing, morphology, phonetics, phonology, pragmatics, semantics, sociolinguistics, and syntax—in collaboration with diverse programs—Psychology, Philosophy, Electrical Engineering, Computer Science and Neuroscience.

News

• Congratulations to the graduating class of 2008
  
  Lindsey Chen, Assistant Professor
  National Taiwan Normal University
  
  Chi-Hang Cheung, Assistant Professor
  Chinese University of Hong Kong
  
  Roberto Mayoral Hernandez, Asst. Professor
  University of Alabama at Birmingham
• Roumi Pancheva recently recieved a prestigious Mellon fellowship for Language and the Brain: The Neural Foundation of the Grammar of Meaning.
• Maria Luisa Zubizarreta was awarded an "Advancing Scholarship in the Humanities and Social Sciences Research Grant" for the project Second Language Speech: The Acquisition of Phrasal Stress and Rhythm.
• Rachel Walker received a USC-Mellon Mentoring Award in the category of Faculty Mentoring Graduate Students.
• Professor Dani Byrd has been elected a Fellow of the Acoustical Society of America "For research on the relation of linguistic structures to the temporal realization of speech."
• Michal Temkin Martinez received the University Outstanding Teaching Assistant Award at the Academic Honors Convocation held in April 2008.